Shell 3D Visualization Center

Mission 

To create and maintain a community of empowered users who will drive the enhancement of teaching and research at UW, by utilizing visualization technology and embracing collaborative multidisciplinary opportunities.

The EIC’s Shell 3D Visualization Center (Viz Center) proudly houses the only four-walled, 3D CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) in Wyoming. The Viz Center beautifully complements the primary function of the EIC-- to enable scientists and engineers to visualize and interact with highly complex data sets.

Designed, engineered and integrated by Mechdyne Corporation, one of the world’s leading providers of innovative visual information technologies, the laboratory combines high-resolution stereoscopic projections and 3D computer graphics to create a virtual environment where researchers can analyze, interpret and share a wide variety of spatially related data. One of the laboratory’s many capabilities is its ability to model oil, gas, and water movements and interactions in the subsurface environment, which will aid researchers and energy companies in deriving maximum value from their mineral resources.  

The laboratory connects via 10-gigabit lines to one of the most powerful supercomputers in the region — the Wyoming National Center for Atmospheric Research Supercomputing Center (NWSC) located west of Cheyenne and UW’s Advanced Research Computing Center (ARCC) — both of which are essential for the complex simulations required in today’s energy research. The Shell 3D Visualization research laboratory is an amazing tool for discovery and is open to the UW community as a university-wide teaching and learning resource.

Equipment with three different levels of display power will enable a range of resolutions and functions for visualizing complex data sets in 3D. 

• Four wall 3D CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment)
• 3D Powerwall for seater audience of 20
• Two-by-three foot array video wall capable of displaying 3D images
• Three screen portable "mini-cave" visualization system
• Head mounted displays 

• Scenario generation and decision-support
• Collaborative architectural design reviews
• Virtual protein analysis
• Visualization for the teaching of anatomy by the medical school 
• Oil, gas, and coal-bed methane reservoir research

• Aerodynamic interactions with turbine blades
• Simulation of reactors for improved design and virtual operations experience